Down at the tire shop last week and my cell phone goes off and it's my friend he asks if I'm heading home soon and I said yes in about fifteen minutes, he says "would you please stop by the house". I said ok. I pull up and he's sitting on his porch as I get closer I see his face is bleeding. I said what the heck happened to you and he points down the porch to a card table with his rifle sitting on it. The rifle, a Ruger left hand model 77 in .204 Ruger is sitting there in pieces. Holy cow, what happened? Here's the deal, and you guys tell me what went wrong.
Gun is new with sixteen rounds of Remington factory shot through it. Everything fine. Buys brand new Remington brass, full length sizes them, checks to be sure they are the proper over all length, uses BR-4 primers, 29 grains of Hodgdon CFE 223, with a Hornady 30 grain V-max. Loads two in magazine, one in chamber. Touches the first round off, no problem. Chambers the second round and Kaboom !! Opened the floor plate and bent the floor plate in about a 30* angle, smashed the round in the magazine and pushed the bullet out and dumped the powder on the table. Peeled the extractor ring off of the bolt and split the stock from the forearm to past the pistol grip. I've seen these blow ups in magazines, but this was my first one in person. Told him how glad I was that he was wearing glasses. WOW ! First thing I asked him, was the barrel blocked with the first round and he says no. (there were two holes in the target). Then asked about the reload, we checked and 29 grains of CFE 223 is ok. He did everything right as far as I can see. Asked if he was sure he had the right powder on the bench when he was reloading and he says he only puts one powder on the bench at a time while reloading. We tugged on the bolt, but it was locked up tight just I figured it would be.
He said he was going to call Ruger to see if they would take a look at it. The guy is honest, so I figure as soon as Ruger learns they were reloads they are going to says it's his fault. Oh, by the way, we pulled the remaining rounds and weighed the charges and they were right at 29 grains. That's all I can think of to tell you guys right now, so if you have any ideas or suggestions on what happened, we sure would like to hear them. I told him the next time he touches on off he's probably going to be gritting his teeth, closing both eyes and looking the other way and jerking the trigger and he says he may never shoot a rifle again. So there you have it. Not good any way you slice it. If there is a defect in the brass or rifle or if for some reason Hodgdon may have filled the canisters with the wrong powder it sure would be nice to get it straightened out before anyone else get buggered up. RRM
